Time to Run
by j-mercuryuk
Summary: He just grabbed Sherlock's hand and told him to run.
1. Running

Thank you very much to Just Bob for beta reading this. You were fantastic and really helped add some of those extra little details in there.

**Time to Run**

Sherlock was having one of those rare moments in life: one where he had no idea what was going on.

He had been minding his 'own' business in a damp, dark alley, the usual kind that runs between buildings, breaking up a long line of typical late 1940's terraced housing. Nothing interesting or remarkable about it, but there were signs, if one were to look close enough; signs of a scuffle which may or may not be of interest to the ex-detective consultant. Whether or not they were, he never found out.

A cry sliced through the air, half panicked, half… bemused (?) which lingered in the heavens, a strong, deep voice; a young male, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He quickly straightened, spinning on his heel towards the source of the sound as it approached. His eyes focused on the end of the passage, waiting for the source of the confounded racket to appear in three, two, one…

Precisely on cue, the man in question burst into view, skidding round the corner by grabbing the wall as he flew past and swinging himself round onto the new course, running directly towards Sherlock. He wore a dark blue pin-striped suit with tie, though the vintage of the cut and style was unclear, and long brown faux-suede coat, the wear and condition consistent with approximately 5 years' regular use, over the top. Bright red converse shoes, U.K. size 12, completed the outfit as a stark contrast to the office attire: not a professional man then. His brown hair was gelled into a messy, but purposeful hairstyle and he was tall, 6.1 ft to be precise. A small smooth sphere, radius: 2.1-2.3 inches, metallic bronze but without scratches, markings or dirt was tucked under his left arm, creasing of sleeve indicating the object weight was about 2.65 kg. He was a strange man running towards him in panic. Except, he wasn't. While he cried out in 'fright' his eyes told another story. They weren't wide with fear, but excitement, he was enjoying every moment of this.

"Run!" the man yelled, waving his arm like a lunatic. "Run!"

Run? Hardly, where was the fun in that? Nowhere. None. Non-existent. Sherlock Holmes didn't run away from things, he ran towards them.

Fingers suddenly clamped themselves round Sherlock's wrist as the stranger dashed past, jerking him after the man.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock snapped, trying to pull his arm free, but failing. It was well and truly secured.

"Running! It's like walking, only quicker."

He was being patronised. He; Sherlock Holmes, the super-genius. It was a sensation that he wasn't really used to any more, the last time it had happened was in 1987- the 18th July to be precise, just before 7:15pm- at the dinner table by Mycroft, and he no longer knew how to deal with it.

"I know that," he snapped back. "That's not what I was asking."

"Question time comes after. They're not very happy with me and I doubt they'll be much happier with you. Not the smartest things, probably assume you're my assistant."

"I don't run away." This was true enough: he took a step back or ducked behind cover, but he never ran away.

They left the alley, stepping onto a narrow path that would lead them between the backs of the houses, or more specifically the gardens. The walls were far shorter, only a little taller than the two men and the brickwork ended, replaced by wooden fencing instead.

"That's great, but I think you may want to rethink your methods this once, unless you want to be turned to something significantly more gooey and less appealing. So, run now, talk later." The stranger shot back in what was clearly a southern English accent, though Sherlock would need he hear more in order to be more precise.

The stranger pulled him to the right, away from the direction that would take them back to the main road, going further into the housing estate instead. He wanted to avoid being seen then, or avoid crowds. Coupled with the words 'they're not very happy with me' and the object under his arm, he was lead the conclusion that this man had just stolen from his pursuers and wished to avoid drawing any more attention to himself and the potential of passers-by assisting with his arrest. However, he'd grabbed Sherlock as he passed, pulling him out of harm's way rather than leaving him as a distraction. It was an odd move for a robber, but not out of the realms of likelihood. It either meant that his followers were dangerous and he had a conscience or he was stupid. Sherlock was inclined to believe the latter.

"W-" he tried again, but was cut off before he finished the first syllable.

"Run now, talk later!"

A sharp stab of annoyance struck Holmes, but to continue would be fruitless and would waste energy that he'd need if he was going to be pulled along much further. He just hoped he was released soon. A back-street thief was hardly worth the notice of a mind like his… but the stolen object was another matter. It was new, different, unknown, in other words; it was exciting. It was something fun to grab his mind, such a rarity now that he couldn't take cases and was stuck with the same mission day-in and day-out. Though he couldn't deny that there was a certain pull towards the thief as well, there was something not quite right about the man in front of him though he lacked the necessary data to pinpoint what it was for sure. Was it accent? Speech pattern? Motivation? Race/colouration? Fashion sense? Personal cleanliness/hygiene? No. None of these seemed to hit the spot.

He was pulled left, back down another alley, but this time the thief stopped halfway along, letting out a triumphant 'aha!' before finally relinquishing his hold on the other man. His relief was short lived as the man passed him the stolen orb, allowing Sherlock to confirm its weight at 2648g precisely, and crouched down at the man-hole by their feet, reaching into his coat pocket as he did so. The ex-detective watched curiously as the thief pulled out what appeared to be a fat silver pen. That was, until he got a clear look at it. There was no doubt that it wasn't a pen, there wasn't even a place for the nib, and the end that the other man pointed to the metal cover had a dark blue bulb set into it. A novelty torch, he surmised: style over substance, completely useless to find one's way by, not that it was dark enough to warrant the use of a light. He must have another use for it.

Sure enough the torch was flipped on, the light blinking, giving off little light while the device made a strange whirling noise, musical notation: high F. The thief ran it round the edge of the manhole, too quick to be looking for something by the inadequate light, but whatever he was trying to do must have worked as he slid back the cover with some effort.

"Get in!" the stranger ordered, looking past Sherlock. "No time to explain, you just have to trust me and jump down."

A quick second look at the man didn't show any danger signs. No pupil dilation, muscle tension or undue perspiration. He was a little anxious and eccentric, but not dangerous. So he did as he was bidden, the man following directly behind him pulling the cover back into place as he did so. Looking up as his feet touched the ground, he saw the man once again running his device around the edge of the metal. Sealing it, Holmes concluded, or at least, that's what the man believed he was doing.

Jumping down to the ground, the other man held a finger to his own lips, his eyes drifting up. Heavy footsteps beat against the ground, halting at the entrance. The faint sounds of sniffing could be heard and the creature was clearly on four legs, no…that didn't sound quite right…two feet and two hands, but there was no unevenness in the steps, so the arms must be the same length as the legs. The two creatures - he was sure there were two - were heavy, twelve stone perhaps, and stocky. His mind sifted through his extensive store of zoological knowledge. Canine? No. Bovine? No. Equine? No. Large primates?… No. Nothing….

He was sharply cut off when one of the creatures thumped the metal cover with a heavy fist, smelling out where their quarry had vanished to.

His partner in crime looked back down, smiling. "That'll keep 'em occupied until they're called off. Quick, strong and violent, but they're as dumb as a dead cat. Still, means you don't want to be caught by one: they like to punch and it doesn't really occur to them to stop until their master tells them to. I'm rather partial to this face now, so I'd rather not end up as a punching bag." He straightened, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "Well, best be off then. Better stay away from the centre of town though, south of the river is probably the best place to end up." He strode past Sherlock, taking four steps before the ex-detective decided to say something.

"The other way."

The other man paused, a slightly bemused look on his face. "Sorry?"

"You need to go the other way if you want to go south of the river."

"Riiight," the other man looked as if was considering the advice, his chin lifting as the word escaped his lips. "Yes, of course. Other way it is then." He marched back past, as if nothing had happened. "I'm sorry to drag you into all of this, does have a habit of happening though. I'll drop you off at a safe distance and make sure you get away safely."

Sherlock stepped after the man, shifting the sphere so that he was carrying it under one arm. "I would hardly say you are in a position to take me anywhere more safely than I could myself. What makes you think I need your protection?"

The man spun round and flipped open a thin leather ID wallet. "Answer your questions?"

Sherlock looked at the sheet of paper dangling before him, the beginnings of regret at following this man tickling through him. "_That_ is a blank sheet of paper."

"It is?" The thief frowned and flipped it round. "It is. Well then," he shoved his hand into his coat pocket and dug about, "how about this one?"

Great. He'd found himself in the company of a man who was either stupid, insane or, most likely, both. "That's the same sheet of paper and it's still blank."

He'd expected a frown or some form of denial at the statement, but instead the man's face split in to a wide grin. He couldn't have looked more happy or smug. "Oh, you are a clever one aren't you? Not fooled by this. You really see what's around you."

"Of course I'm not fooled by it, not even an idiotic five year old could be fooled by a blank piece of paper."

His comment was ignored. "Sorry, I don't think I ever caught your name?"

"That's because you never asked."

"I'm asking now."

"John Watson." It was a bluff, one that normally worked. No one would think that Sherlock Holmes would dare use the name of his ex-partner.

"John Watson, eh?" He shoved his hand towards Sherlock. "John Smith, a pleasure to meet you."

Sherlock felt that familiar wave of smug satisfaction as he, at long last, pinned something for definite on the man. He looked at the hand but didn't take it. "You're lying."

"Mmm?"

"Your name isn't John Smith."

"Oh, and I suppose yours is really John Watson," and for a moment Sherlock feared he'd made one more miscalculation. "Either you're lying or your parents had a wicked sense of humour."

"What's wrong with John Watson?" Indignation crept into his voice. It was a dull name, but there wasn't anything else wrong with it, well, not per say.

"You know, 'Elementary my dear Watson'? 'Cause, he never actually said that. I really have to watch what I say at dinner parties, but at least it didn't end in a fight that time… or a space invasion…that was a bad party."

"What are you wittering on about?"

"The greatest fictional detective of all time…and space, though I also have to admit that I'm also rather partial to Hercule Poirot and his 'little grey cells'. Give me a good, old-fashioned detective who uses their brain any day, not all this high-tech nonsense that goes around now and you have no idea what I'm talking about."

"None."

"Don't you read crime books, or hear about them at all?"

"I don't read or pay attention to pointless rubbish."

"Pointless rubbish! At least tell me you've read Harry Potter?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Because it's fun! Honestly, the youth these days, wouldn't pick up a book unless it's a TV guide or attached to a games console." He turned and continued walking, a rather annoyed Sherlock following behind him.

The youth? That was rich coming from a man who didn't look much older than him. 'But he's older than he looks', his brain dutifully told him, 'much, much older.' There was a quality about him that reminded him of Irene Adler; that Sherlock would be able to read what the other man wished him to see and that would be all.

"I don't waste my time with video games and TV."

"What do you do then?"

"I find ways to stop being bored," he replied vaguely. It was the story of his life, just trying to stop himself from becoming painful bored.

"Stories are a great way to kill time."

"I don't waste my time with rubbish." This man was utterly frustrating.

"Okay, okay," the thief accepted defeat in a tone that clearly stated that he thought 'Watson' was being far too touchy about this entire matter. "So, what were you doing down that alley?"

"Nothing of interest. Why do you want to know?"

"Just starting a conversation."

"Why?"

"Why walk around in silence?"

"Then tell me what you were running from."

"Henchmen."

"They didn't sound like normal henchmen to me."

"They aren't, they're very stupid."

"All henchmen are, that's why they're henchmen."

"True, but these ones are particularly stupid. They're designed to follow orders and not to think for themselves."

"And be quadrupedal? What do you mean, 'designed'?"

"Oh," the man tilted his head back to look at him without stopping. "You noticed that?"

"Which one?"

"Both," he grinned, falling silent.

Sherlock waited… Five...four…three…two…one… No answer. Looked like he needed to prod again to get one. "What are they?"

"A bit of this and a bit of that."

Which was the last straw; he didn't have to deal with this, the edging around the truth and trying to grasp at the facts of his companion as well as the situation. One mystery, in one place at a time. He'd had enough of these mind games with Moriarty, and they all knew how that had turned out. "Fine, I have no interest in the affairs of thieves."

"That's a little rude. Who said I was a thief?"

Sherlock snorted. "It's obvious, a toddler could work it out. You were running from them with an object under your arm, and you stated yourself that they weren't very happy with you. It's not a huge leap to make."

"Suppose it isn't. What else have you figured out then with that beautiful brain of yours?"

He nearly did it, falling back into old habits and spilling out everything he had deduced from the man's clothing, but he drew himself short in time. He was trying to stay under the radar; spilling into an observational study was not the way to keep up the pretence of being dead, no matter how much his ego was begging for a massage.

"Nothing."

The thief suddenly stopped and spun around so quickly that Sherlock nearly ran into him. "Come on, you can do better than that. If you can see through psychic paper without any training then you're smart enough to notice all kinds of things about me. I want to hear what you've got."

The taller man brushed past him. "I'm not a jukebox, I don't take requests to sing and dance."

"It's fun, like a horoscope; complete rubbish, but it's fun to give it a whirl."

Sherlock froze in place, the jibe biting deep. How dare this man, this imbecile, compare his science of deduction to some fanciful, make-believe bunk? One of his problems was that he could never resist bait: an insult or ignorant comment had to have a clever and witty come back from him to send the offender tumbling back into their place. He realised that such behaviour was at least part of the cause for his current predicament, but this was one lonely stranger in a sewer who evidently wanted to avoid drawing attention to himself as much as Sherlock did. Besides, he had asked for it. He may not be able to read this "John Smith"s face much, but there was so much else he could read into.

"You're a traveller," he began before spinning round to face his intellectual prey, "but not the poor homeless kind: you have fresh hair product in your hair showing that you've been back home, or at least some place of residence, in the last few hours. Your suit is mid-range but well-tailored, nothing overly expensive, but not cheap enough that you could afford to waste it by throwing it away if you are prone to having money problems. The fact that you go running through the backstreets of London in it and wilfully jump into sewers without a thought to your clothes means that the cost - and money in general - is not an issue for you. A little worn, but not to the extent they look tatty, and certainly not in need of repair, so you haven't simply 'fallen on hard times'.

"Normally, given the attire, I'd say you had an office job or professional occupation, but everything else points elsewhere. Your coat and trousers have dirt on them, a couple of days old: probably about time you changed them. So you didn't have time to change clothes when you stopped off but you restyled your hair: you're at least partly image conscious. Whatever you spend your time doing, it's outdoors: your skin is more weather-worn than any office worker I've ever met. Calluses on your hands indicate someone who works with their hands, too many from and not just on the fingers just typing or writing. There is also the most obvious fact that you're wearing _bright red_ Converse shoes, not really up to scratch for most dress codes, but great for running away from people, and the scuff marks clearly show that you do a lot of that.

"Today isn't unusual for you: judging from how you deal with all this it must be the norm. You wear glasses regularly, and you're long-sighted. You are also significantly older than you look and undoubtedly mentally unbalanced."

There was a moment's silence before the man gave him the most unexpected reaction that he'd ever received after one of his analyses; he laughed. A short ecstatic laugh as he brought his hands together in a loud singular clap. "Oh you are good. Brilliant in fact, smarter than anyone else on this world I've met. You've got me down better than anyone else has after just ten minutes, but you've only barely scratched the surface and you didn't get everything right."

"Enlighten me."

"I'm not really stealing this, it's not really theirs to begin with and at least some of the stuff in this belongs to me. So, it's not _really _theft. Can't really call myself mentally unbalanced either. A little crazy, yeah: crazy balanced. Too much of a genius to be unbalanced, if I do say so myself."

"You, a genius?"

"Yeah," he said with a smile, "and you want to know something else; I'm even smarter than you are." The man turned back around and continued walking. "But, you are the only one who's come close to matching me. The only human that is," he said the last part under his breath, so that Sherlock almost didn't catch the words. Before he could wonder if he heard it right, the self-proclaimed genius continued on. "That's a pretty big compliment though. I've travelled a very long way: I'm far from home, further than you could imagine."

"Further than I could imagine and yet you still have a middle-class, southern English accent?"

"Well, it's not really a British accent, just how it comes across to you, though that stint I had in London right at the beginning probably doesn't help there."

They arrived at another ladder and 'Smith' quickly scrambled up, abruptly ending the conversation, twisted the lid up and pushed it aside. Climbing up, he waited for Sherlock to follow before replacing the lid while he looked round at the park they'd come up in. "Well, it's been fun 'John', but I'll take that back now." Smith reached forward to take the object he'd given the other man at the beginning of their sewer journey and Sherlock reflexively tightened his grip slightly on it.

He would've been lying if he'd said he wasn't tempted to run off with it to conduct his own experiments on it. To finally have something so interesting back in his grasp and then just hand it over without even trying to find out anything was maddening. Not that it would have done him any good. His equipment was all at Baker Street and he couldn't just wander in and start playing about when he was supposed to be dead... although it might be worth it for the look on John's face.

The other man noticed his hesitation. "Of course, you could tag along. I can always use another head, but it will be dangerous."

He was curious, yes, but did he really want to spend more time with this non-thief? Firstly…well, the man himself. Secondly, his dealings with the last two people whom he had had trouble reading had ended badly for him. This man seemed so … open though. There was a warm friendliness about him. Sherlock nearly pulled a face: 'warm friendliness'? He really had been spending far too much time with John. However, as open as the man seemed to be, he still couldn't read past that cover; he was shut out to only look at the surface of the river, not feeling the currents that coursed underneath, and the other man was doing it on purpose. Yes, he would have to amend his earlier thoughts; this man was no idiot but a complicated puzzle and he did so love puzzles.

"I don't work either with or for people whose names I don't even know. It shows a lack of professional courtesy, and besides, causes more problems than it's worth."

"I wouldn't really call it work, more like dangerous-problem-solving." The phrase tickled at a deep itch. "Come on, I know you're interested."

"What makes you think that?"

"You're still here, aren't you?" John Smith stepped forward. "Let's try this again: I'm The Doctor."

"That's not a name."

"It's my name." No lie there.

"Then I'm The Detective." He put just a hint of a sneer in the retort, unable to resist sarcasm.

The Doctor grinned, shaking his head in an entirely approving manner, "I bet you are." The man spread his hands wide. "So, what do you say, Detective; wanna kill a few hours?

**The End (and dear God this really has to be the end before I take up another multi-chapter fanfic)**

Or should I turn it into a multi-chapter fic? I'd really love to know everyone's opinion on this. How was it? Too much detail? Not enough detail? Too OoC? This is my first time writing for Sherlock and Doctor Who, so I would really love the feedback.

Also, because I'm shameless, please check out this challenge community (not just for fanfiction) http : / / fictunes-lj . livejournal . com/ If you wanna pot up on LJ, but don't have an account you can just contact me and feel free to go back to past song lists and use them as well.


	2. Tracking

**A/N:** First and foremost. THANK YOU to everyone who fav'ed, followed and especially reviewed this (sorry if I didn't reply to your review. Seriously, my mind is just blown by it all. I tried to reply to them all, but I'm afraid I may have missed one or two by accident). I was gob-smacked by how well this was received and I'm so over the moon about it. So, thank you everyone. I'm so sorry this took so long to get up, but I was so nervous about this being a huge disappointment after such a good first chapter, that I got a little stuck on how to do this pre-arch.

A/N 2: There was a further delay with this update. I sent this to me brother and then found out two months later that he never actually received it Which has now set my resolve to improve communications between us.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. It was pointed out that my excessive use of commas slows the story down, so I've tried to take a step towards fixing that in this chapter. I hope it worked a little at least.

**Chapter 2 - Tracking**

Sherlock was not infallible. He was very much aware of this fact, no matter how loath he was to admit it. To think otherwise would not only be stupid, but dangerous. Misplaced arrogance caused mistakes and playing up your skills was for useless idiots who only had lies to pitifully grip to. His genius was genuine and he saw no reason to hide this, but he did make mistakes. He occasionally misread signs and even, on rare occasions, completely missed facts - as he had said to John once, 'there was always something'. If he didn't then he wouldn't be in the situation he was in now, supposedly dead from suicide. This didn't mean he was happy for his faults to be broadcasted to the world, but he was willing to admit that it could make life more interesting.

However, there was a difference between the thrill of an interesting puzzle and the utter annoyance and confoundment that came with pieces that wouldn't fit together. He wasn't entirely sure which of these The Doctor was. There were signs and clues all over the man, from the way he held himself to the scuff marks on his Converse trainers, but they didn't add up to a full and complete picture like they should. As if each little clue was a little misshapen and therefore couldn't fit in with the other pieces.

The longer he spent with this man, the more he realised that the picture he had was only half-baked. For the time being it intrigued him, but there was also that small hint of irritation that came with a puzzle that would not be solved. The man was an enigma, wrapped in such fascinating circumstances that his pride would not be content until he had unravelled it all.

Which is what had led him to his current state of affairs; following –him, following!- the man through London, (Greenwich Park to be precise, walking north towards The River and approaching 500m away from Blackheath Village) after nightfall, listening as the man ranted and raved.

"We need to find the source of the signal. There should be a transmitter beaming it across London to the henchmen. It's not just sending them instructions, it's their lifeline. Think of the Droids in 'The Phantom Menace'. Basic inanimate-to-animate psychic transmission process, dealt with it countless times, kinda like having a remote-controlled robot. Cut the signal and they stop moving. Last time it was the London Eye, 'course that wasn't your London Eye." Another one of those odd things that he rattled off as he spoke, but this one gave him more to work with. Seven theories appeared in his mind.

The Doctor suddenly spun round. "Sorry, I'm not really used to this version yet, just need to catch up a little. Any of these ring a bell? Titanic?"

"Of course." He wasn't that out of touch with history and there were several rather interesting factors and details about the event. He expanded upon theory two.

"How many Titanic ships have there been?"

"One." Idiotic question, the expansion from theory two was discarded.

"Christmas invasion?"

Sherlock remained silent, completely discarding the second theory and adding eight and nine.

"Miracle Day? Battle at Canary Warf? Cybermen? Daleks?"

The Doctor received no recognition from the detective as he prattled on. Theory three, discarded. Eight, slightly modified.

"UFOs over London?"

Four and seven were also thrown away, and replace by another and added 'Alien enthusiast' to number one.

The Doctor looked thoughtful. "Either you've been living under a rock for the last four years or they never happened here. Now that is interesting." His tone suddenly changed, "Do you have a phone?"

"Why?"

"I should be able to use it to trace the signal back. I'd use the TARDIS, but it's a bit far from here and we need to break up that signal before the Henchmen hurt anyone else. Don't mind, do you?" He held out his hand.

The short answer was, 'Yes, he did mind.' He wasn't in the habit of giving his phone to just anyone, he occasionally let people handle it, but not use it, even as free as he was using others' phones. However, the curiosity to see what this man wanted to do to his phone, or perhaps more accurately what he thought he was going to do with his phone, was strong. It would be a small price to pay in order to dispel or confirm many of his speculations about this man. In this case, the pros outweighed the cons. He reached into his breast pocket and produced his phone, handing it over with a careful poker-face.

The Doctor took it and pulled out his pen-torch, for lack of a better word, from earlier. "iPhone 4s, I do like my gadgets. After October 2011 then?" That made Sherlock pause for a moment; even he knew what date it was. He could understand losing a week or two, but this man didn't even seem to know the year. The Doctor suddenly pulled a face. "Don't tell me it's Christmas. These things _always_ happen to me at Christmas."

"Friday 13th January 2012." Seven months after his fall, thirteen days into the New Year and one week after his 33rd birthday.

The stranger looked back down at the mobile. "Nice, phone. Bit of a gadget boy then?"

"It's a gift." This wasn't untrue. Mycroft had given him it to him after he'd been forced to give up his old phone just before his 'death'. His brother wanted to give him a Blackberry, just like he and his 'team' owned, but Sherlock had stood firm. He may have crumbled and accepted Mycroft's help in faking his death and in its wake, but he wouldn't convert to his brother's taste in phones. So the elder brother had given in and instead handed over an untraceable iPhone (later upgraded to the latest model), used for its internet capabilities more than to communicate with anyone.

The Doctor pointed his tool at Sherlock's phone, the owner watching intently for any tricks. When the 'torch' was flipped on, the high pitched whirling started again (E Sharp). As if acting on its own, the phone starting scrolling through the options and icons. He was almost looking forward to talking to Mycroft again, just so he could tell him that his 'special iPhone' had been hacked by a glowing pen. Still, it implied that The Doctor's instrument had some kind of remote control capabilities.

The pitch changed to D Flat and the shifting through the menus stopped. A range of icons, images, and binary code flashed across the screen, moving far too quickly (at least six images per second, too quickly for the human brain to effectively process) for Sherlock to catch. What mystified him more was how the torch was capable of doing this. It had to be more than the frequency of sound, but the other man showed no other method of control.

"What is it?" Sherlock asked, eyeing the man's tool with a new curiosity and respect as the stranger moved it to run it alongside the surface of the sphere under Sherlock's arm. The noise returned to the mentally dubbed 'scanning pitch'.

"Sonic screwdriver." The object returned to the phone.

Sherlock sneered at the reply. "A screwdriver can't be sonic."

"Your phone says otherwise," came the retort, turning the mobile screen so that the detective could clearly see the new feature that his phone had just acquired. 'Tracking App' headed the screen while an arrow lazily flashed sky blue on the screen, pointing south-west. His eyes raked the screen, flipping the mobile round to check the casing for tampering. Nothing. Not even an extra scratch on the black polished case. He discarded theories one, five and seven.

He looked across at the 'sonic screwdriver', uncomfortably reminded of Moriarty's Key Code. However, that was different; it opened doors to allow changes to be made; it didn't actually make the changes and certainly did not create something entirely new so quickly. The only thing the Doctor had done was shift the pressure on the buttons or flick a switch that would change the pitch and, by extension, the function. His fingers itched to take it apart and find out exactly how it worked.

He looked back up at the Doctor's tool. "Tell me: What _is_ it?" Whatever it was, it was years ahead of anything he had seen.

"I told you; a sonic screwdriver," the reply was chirpy as he tossed the tool and neatly caught it in one hand.

"Most screwdrivers can't do this." He waved the screen before him to emphasise his point.

"Most screwdrivers aren't sonic," the man replied with an ever-so-slightly smug smile and a subtle tone that this was perhaps more than a little obvious. "Anyhow, it's pointing this way. So, this way it is then."

The Doctor strode off at a casual pace, allowing Sherlock to easily catch up.

"If it can do this, then wouldn't a map be more efficient?"

"Can't. It can pick up the signal, but it can't pinpoint it. We just have to follow it until we get to the source. The arrow should get darker the closer we get; I'd say we're about four miles away. Nifty, isn't it?" He beamed up at his new companion. "A lot more subtle than most of my own trackers as well, they get me some funny looks. There was this one time I was on a bus…"

(&)

The Doctor was in his element. He'd even say he was having a great day, not that many people would consider being chased by chimera-like creatures through the back streets of London a great day. Their loss. After all, alternative dimensions were a lot of fun, if not a little tricky to navigate. You never knew how things were different, but then that was the fun of it all. He had to admit though, exploring was easier without a companion. As much as he missed them and their company, it was easier without having to deal with the candy store effect.

While this was one world that appeared to have very little difference to his Earth, the differences it did have were definitely biggies. An Earth with no large scale alien contact by 2012, that was interesting. He wasn't even entirely sure if any had taken place at all. Was there UNIT or Torchwood here? And if so, were their purposes the same.

Then there was the man who as currently walking beside him who may or may not be a certain famous consulting detective. Now _that_ was exciting, not just the fact that he was meeting him, but he was _real_. A real person! He'd never been to a universe where fictional characters were real. It made him wonder if it extended to all fictional detectives, characters, a select few or just this one beautiful, brilliant mind.

Still, he could improve on his bedside manner a little. A small amount of manners and grace never hurt anyone. Just look at Shakespeare; genius mind and perfectly pleasant person, if not a little promiscuous; or Romana, who was a genius and a half but her second incarnation was more bubbly than a puppy in a flower field. He had to admit though; he did like the sound of The Doctor and The Detective.

The man beside him stopped frowning down at the mobile phone app, the arrow almost black while it spun continuously round in a circle, a sure sign that they were almost on top of the source. They just couldn't be sure if that was literally or figuratively.

The Doctor scanned the area, looking for a likely origin point for the signal. Nothing of interest: lots of buildings - mostly houses, a 'missing cat' sign posted on a lamppost, an Olympic pin poster, a broken Girls Aloud CD case...nothing that screamed 'I'm transmitting physic waves across London. Please stop me!' A little inconsiderate if you asked him.

He hummed thoughtfully. "I didn't think they'd set up shop in a housing estate," he turned on the spot as he spoke, examining his surroundings. "This makes things trickier. They'll need space for the computer to power and control the transmission. A smaller dish means the computer inside will need to be bigger to compensate. So we're either looking for a really big-giant dish…radio-bowl…thingy or a…"

His sight fell on the spot his companion had been a minute ago, finding it empty. His eyes darted around until he found 'The Detective' striding across the road. He'd walked off while he was talking! Now that was just damn cheeky. Still, it would teach him not to pay attention to a man carrying his 'mysterious' sphere.

"Oi, where you going?"

The Detective didn't stop or turn around as the Time Lord called out, making the man jog after him to get an answer. This guy really did like to be the one in charge; he'd have to be careful of that. A little rebellion was good, excellent even. It was one wonderful thing about humans; they sometimes ran off and did their own things. That wonderful will, independence and curiosity were what made humans humans. It kept life that little bit more interesting and, more often than not, did more good than harm…well, real harm anyway. However, outright refusal to listen and an insistence on doing things their way lead to problems and it was usually the ones around them that suffered. It may take a little while to figure out how stubborn this human was and how easy it would be to wean him off the bad habit.

The Detective had stopped at the end of a parade of shops, where the last store was boarded up, his eyes raking over the front face.

"You think it's here?" The Doctor asked.

"It is here."

"It is the beginning of a double dip recession, or it will be, so boarded-up shops aren't that unusual."

"This one's occupied."

The Doctor took a step back, looking over the building once. "It could be squatters," but he didn't sound convinced of it himself.

"Unlikely. See these dents in the metal grating? The shape is too distinctive to be anything but a fist, but too large and powerful to be human. A normal person doesn't have the strength to do that, let alone a squatter, and certainly not repeatedly. Same applies to the boarded-up windows. Hard wood, probably oak, five centimetres thick and buckling in the centre in manner you'd expect if something was trying to break out by thumping it. I've never met a squatter that can do that, so it must be something stronger. Undoubtedly your 'Henchmen' from earlier were kept in here but were restless to get out.

"It's a good place to hide," The Doctor admitted, crouching down to examine the bottom of the shutters. "No-one would think twice about an out-of-business shop. Even if any teenagers or squatters wanted to get in they couldn't; the bottom of the metal here has been permanently sealed shut. You can see where the bottom has been fused with the concrete. Nicely done as well," he let himself sound impressed, "not the work of a handyman from the Yellow Pages."Not the work of anything that came from 21st century Earth either.

The Detective stepped thoughtfully away. "The locks are for show, this can't be opened at all, which means that the Henchmen must have another entrance." He disappeared round the corner, calling after him. "Satellite dish. Too large for private use, but not large enough to attract unwanted attention."

Rather than following the other man straight away, The Doctor pressed an ear against the cold surface of the metal shutter and listened carefully. It was very soft, but he could hear the hum of computers from inside. Satisfied he stepped away and followed his younger companion, rounding the building to the back where the other man was looking up at the rear of the shop.

"There's no back entrance, not on the ground floor," and sure enough the back door and windows had been bricked over as if they'd never been there. "Hold that."

The Doctor suddenly found his sphere roughly shoved back into his chest as the other man finally relinquished his prize. Apparently this new problem had overtaken the sphere in the hierarchy of interest… for the moment. The Detective walked towards the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to climb up and enter through the first floor window," the other man replied as if it was the most natural thing to do in the world. Really, he didn't know how he attracted them. He always seemed to draw the strangest companions, not that he would change it for Gallifrey itself.

"Hold on, the Henchmen could be in there. They're quicker than us and they weren't stumbling half way across London with only an arrow as a guide. How are you even going to climb up there?"

"Handholds and cobwebs."

"Sorry?"

The other man sighed. "There are handholds in the wall, subtle and just enough to be gripped, but they are there. You can see where the bricks stick out and the trees block most of the view from the idle eyes across the street. There are cobwebs on the window boards, spiders don't work that quickly. Judging from the progress, no one could have possibly entered since this morning. Finally, and most obvious, the Henchmen don't strike me as being particularly quiet. I suspect if they were inside then we'd notice. It should be easy enough to use the handholds and there has to be an easy way for the creatures to get in that doesn't require a great deal of intelligence." He looked at The Doctor, distinctly smug. "And I thought you said you were smarter than me."

Then he turned and walked to the wall without another word and started climbing. He watched the human for a moment, impressed that he didn't once step on his own coat as he climbed. His new friend did seem determined to go in that way. Not really for him though, not when he had his own way of getting inside. He moved to the bricked-in back door, flipping the sonic screwdriver he'd pulled out of his pocket. Why climb up and scramble through a window when you could just make a door.

(&)

It took two minutes and thirty-seven seconds to scale the wall; too easy. It would be for anyone over five foot five inches. He suspected that one of the henchmen may be shorter than the other but it was hard to be precise without further data. There was hardly any wearing along his route, the edges had begun to be smoothed round slightly and there was the occasional crack or chunk of brick that had crumbled off under the weight of rough 'hands'. Either they hadn't been here for long or they rarely ascended or descended from the window. It was more likely to be the former rather than the latter, no more than a week.

He pulled himself onto the narrow ledge of the window. Holding himself in position with a carefully placed hand, he closely examined the crack between the wooden boards and the brick wall. There was a one-centimetre gap, too large for the boards to be nailed into place. That made sense. As he'd said to The Doctor, they needed to get in somehow, and whoever was in charge for that matter.

He gently laid a hand on the wooden cover and applied the slightest amount of force, noting how easily the wood swung inwards by five millimetres with an almost inaudible creak. Hinges then. Really, this place was so suspicious that Sherlock once again found himself wondering at the stupidity of the common man. Surely someone must have noted strange creatures climbing in and out of the window or, for that matter, the noise these creatures had made trying to get out of the metal shutters at the front. How did people go about their lives when they were so oblivious to the world around them? Were their heads really that empty?

He pushed the cover harder, just enough to slip a leg in. The balls of his feet connected with a carpet floor and he shifted his centre of gravity, but that was as far as his controlled movements went. Something grabbed his ankle and pulled. Hard. Four long fingers and an opposable thumb (a hand, had to be) and strong ones at that if the ache that resonated from his ankle was anything to judge by. However, it was not human (skin texture wrong, even through his trousers, and the hand too strong) so most likely a greater ape (judging from size and strength, probably a gorilla). He was thrown off-balance as he was yanked into the room.

'Stupid,' he thought as his spine was dragged along the corner of the sill, cushioned marginally by his coat. How completely stupid he had been. He'd been so caught up in the mindlessness of others and the need to prove how much more intelligent he was than his tag-along that he had once again proven his fallibility. He'd lowered himself to the level of the rest of the world with such a stupid mistake, overlooking something so obvious. Of course there were more than two Henchmen.

* * *

Well, I hope that wasn't too disappointing to you all. Drop a review telling me what you think. Did you like it? Did it suck?

Oh, and a little note on Mycroft. Though I really don't think Mycroft had anything to do with Sherlock's fake death in the series (as much as I like the thought, every time I see that episode I just don't think it's possible), I've included it in here purely for connivance. Though I won't say anything more about that. Yet.


	3. Fighting

**A/N: **Sorry this took so long guys. This chapter was…frustrating and horrible to write and edit. Though, on the plus side, it seems rather fitting that this goes up on the same day that series three starts filming :D

**Chapter 3**

Sherlock hit the floor with a force that would be sure to leave a bruise along his left bicep. Not willing to hang about, he kicked out with his free foot and connected with a body, finding the blow was slightly cushioned (short fur, one to two centimetres). The muscles were toned and hard (a strong creature). It was either an animal or a large man (weight-lifter of some variety) wearing a fur coat. The growl that the animal let out was distinctly canine: he would have said a wolf, but that was highly unlikely in London, so more likely a husky. However, both were unlikely considering the fact that dogs didn't have hands.

The window board bounced back into place as he twisted round to look at the thing, reducing the light to nothing more than a millimetre sliver that barely penetrated the darkness. Sherlock may have excellent eye-sight, but he didn't have nocturnal vision. He could just about see a vague mass that stirred while the edges faded into darkness. He scrambled to his feet knowing he had to get away, but his back hit the wall (plaster over brick, judging by the sound) rather than finding an escape route.

A loud sniff cut through the air and the floor creaked. The creature was shifting its weight (the creak, strain of the floor-boards and what he had summarised of muscle density placed its weight closer to 14 stone rather that his original 12-stone guess), alerting its next move to Sherlock. The detective ducked to his right just in time to dodge his opponent's charge. The creature slammed into the wall and the room shook. It must have been heavier than Sherlock predicted to do that (at least 16 stone) or perhaps the shock came from elsewhere (the vibrations through the floor were very prominent). There was a slight rustle and the creature sounded as if it was sitting, most likely stunned from the impact. Taking advantage of the short break, Sherlock shoved his hand into his pocket and roughly pulled out his phone. Tapping on the screen, he cast some extra light in the room. It wasn't much (five watts), but at least he should be able to…

No, it was useless. It was impossible to see what his eyes claimed they saw in the dim, they must be playing tricks on him in the restricted light (which was almost as unlikely as what he was seeing. His sight was perfect, only time failing him due to the effect of a drug). A creature like that wouldn't be able to move, let alone track anything across London. Yet, as the creature shock its head, the sound and the movements matched perfectly. He saw the creature shift and the floorboards groaned in time (thicker floorboards than originally supposed, a part of his brain rationalised), but then the mind could play remarkable tricks on a person to match the senses.

'It's a clever trick,' he told himself, as he side-stepped another charge, 'but it's still a trick.'

Sherlock moved aside a third time, towards the centre of the room, but he wasn't so lucky. The hand grabbed him tightly by his elbow, pulled and swung him round. His phone flew out of his hand from the unexpected force and the breath fled him as he hit the wall (the impact would cause cracks in the plaster). A hand enclosed around his throat; it was definitely not human but his mind refused to focus on what it was as his airways constricted and oxygen failed to reach the rest of his body. He tried to pry the hand away from his neck, a futile attempt; he would die before he loosened that grip. He let go with his right hand and struck out with a boxer's blow, catching the monster on the muzzle (yes definitely muzzle-like and distinctly wolf-like). Whimpering, it let go and the detective slid to the floor. Canines, he knew, often had noses highly sensitive to impact as well as to smell.

There was a rush of footsteps (spacing between footfalls indicated sprinting), and a loud bang as the door burst open. A sixty-watt bulb flared into life. He blinked several times and looked up for his first clear glimpse of the creature that towered over him. He found his breath catching for reasons other than restricted airways and a…fear (?) he hadn't felt since Baskerville. This…the…it wasn't possible. He understood now why he'd been unable to identify the creature before. It wasn't an animal, it was several.

In the full light of the room, as well as the hallway's light, there was no denying what he saw before him. It wasn't possible to entertain the prospect that the creature before him wasn't real. The idea that it was an impressive animal suit immediately fled his mind. It was too big for one person, two people could never move like that and it was far too realistic. Drugs then, or an illusion, but that conclusion fell through without taking any hold. He had felt the hot air against his face, smelt the meat on its breath. When he had hit the creature, he was hitting flesh that was really there beneath the fur and skin. It moved, rippled and reacted in a way that could not be faked. The grip around his throat moments ago was not something that could purely be a figment of his imagination.

It had been the torso and arms of the gorilla that made up its upper body. His eyes travelled #to where the gorilla's body seamlessly fused with the hind legs and body of a lioness (both animals still young, both developing and relatively small/light. Lioness, twenty months. Gorilla, around 8 years). The only line was where one set of fur blended into the other. There were no stitches, no scar line, nothing. He could not see how the two parts had been attached to one another. The head was no better. His first guess had been right, it was a wolf, but this creature shouldn't be able to move, to think, to see. It should be impossible for someone to successfully take apart three different animals and then attach them together so it pumped blood around the millions of vessels and send thousands of electrical impulses between three vastly different biological bodies that should be dead. Spinal cords, circulatory systems, immune systems, all totally incompatible. They shouldn't be able to do that after being separated from their owners, he didn't understand how it was alive. He didn't know who had the technology and the knowledge to create this…thing.

The creature didn't seem to notice the light, its focus on the shocked detective under him, raising its fist to strike again.

A sharp whistle from the doorway suddenly drew the creature's attention away and both of them turned to see The Doctor standing, holding the sphere before him. "This is what you want, isn't it?" the man spoke again, waving the object before him as the creature's eyes became rooted on the globe. The arm fell, seeming to forget all about Sherlock as it turned to the other man. "Yes, that's it. Come and get the shiny orb. Yeees. That's a good Henchman." The Doctor watched closely as the creature slowly stalked towards him, speaking to it as if it were a particularly stupid child or dog. "That's a good boy. Now, fetch!"

The man threw the sphere and it shot through the boarded window (at a trajectory to hit street-level 15.6-15.9 yards away), creating a small exit-hole. As soon as the sphere disappeared the Henchman ran after it, crashing through what remained of the boards and into thin air. Judging from the startled cry that accompanied the breaking twigs as it flew into the tree, it had either forgotten it was upstairs, didn't know or it hadn't occurred to it that jumping would cause painful injuries. Four seconds later there was a heavy thud as flesh hit the concrete pavement. It wasn't dead though; a creature that size and strength falling only five metres would only have some broken bones, but wouldn't die.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor rushed to his side, but Sherlock simply brushed him off.

"I'm fine," he rasped out from his abused throat.

"You sure? You don't sound fine."

"Positive. It will heal."

"If you're sure," he relented before continuing, "We need to get downstairs before it returns. I've bought some time but it will be back for us. All depends on how long it spends looking for the sphere." The man turned and strode to the door, Sherlock quickly following.

"You threw it out the window."

"It was you or the sphere and you're a lot harder to replace."

"I wanted to examine it."

"Yes, well you can examine it later, when we're done. First we need to block that signal, unless you want to run from chimeras for the rest of your life." The man slipped out of the room and down the hallway towards the stairs, once again forcing Sherlock to follow his lead. Annoyed by this aggravating pattern, he snapped out a retort.

"It's not a chimera."

The Doctor stopped at the top of the stairs. "Sorry?"

"The Chimera was a three-headed monster, with the foreparts of a lion, the middle-parts of a goat and a snake for its tail, therefore it isn't a chimera," he was unwilling to admit at this point that the meaning of the word had changed over time, he was going to get back on top. The Greeks often combined different animal to make different creatures, the chimera just happened to be the most famous. It was a small fact that he had absorbed from Mycroft during his brother's obsession with the classics. It was completely useless and under normal circumstances he would have 'deleted' the information, but it was difficult to discard anything to do with his brother. One never knew when the slightest detail maybe useful when dealing with his sibling. "Unless you're talking about the medical term, in which case you're even further off."

The other man gave him a long look that was somehow vaguely bemused but not at the content at his words. "I was talking in more general terms," there was a sharp, but soft intake of breath and a small curious frown creased his brow. "You really are a stickler for details," and then he was gone, quickly descending the steps, leaving him in no better a position than when he started.

The Doctor stood at the base of the steps, hand resting against the wall as he examined it. He pressed an ear against the cracked, white-washed surface, running his hand over the wall. "Perception filter?" he muttered as Sherlock stepped onto the bottom stair. "Maybe…no, just a wall. Door's been removed, it _was_ here though."

Sherlock couldn't see any indication that a door had been there at any point in time, but his attention quickly passed over it to something far less subtle; the gaping hole in the wall (one and a half meters tall and 80 centimetres at its widest) that lead to the outside.

"That wasn't there when we entered the building."

"It wasn't there before _you_ entered the building." The Doctor passed him by, moving down the corridor.

Catching the meaning, Sherlock stepped closer to the new entrance. "You made it?"

"How did you think I got in?" he asked as he fiddled with the door under the stairs, sounding a little surprised at the question.

However, he would need explosives to do that and he couldn't hide those on his person, not enough to make this large a hole. On top of that, the bricks that lay scattered on the floor were whole. That would not have happened if explosives had been used.

"You didn't use explosives."

"Nope, just my trusty sonic screwdriver, doing what it does best," he added more distractedly. He could hear the man rustling behind him, searching his pockets, followed by the familiar high-pitched whirring noise. He was opening the door…oh, of course, but a wall and a door were two completely different things.

He could hear shifting and sniffing from the outside. "Doctor," he warned, stepping back from the gap and towards his companion.

"I know. Just another minute, this lock is a little tricky…" Sherlock could hear the henchman approaching coming up to the hole of an entrance in the back of the house. The consulting detective scanned the area for escape route, finding his options sorely limited. Scooping down he picked up one of the bricks (weighing 2,238 g, would cause sufficient damage if wielded correctly) scattering the floor. Just in case…

"Got it!"

He could hear the small door open and felt a sharp tug on the back of his coat as he was pulled in after the Doctor and the door slammed shut behind them. The first thing he noted, as his companion attempted to lock the door with his sonic screwdriver (something he'd yet to be convinced of), was the low hum that seemed to fill the room and how this room seemed to be brighter than any other in the house. The hum was distinctive: computers. And not just one, but many small ones. Turning round, he set his sights on the old shop floor.

It had clearly been, until recently, a local corner shop (he quickly decided that in the larger scheme of things, the question of why the cupboard-under-the-stairs led to the shop floor was irrelevant). The rows of shelves were still intact, running down the centre of the room, but now they held computers and machines, not day-to-day necessities. Opposite them, sitting against the right-hand wall, sat a huge supercomputer. However it was more accurate to say it was several small computers attached and piled on top of each other to reach the ceiling (the satellite dish was on the other side of the wall). In the centre of the tower was a very large radio, and beside it a discarded microwave.

All the machines appeared to be custom jobs, using a mix of components that had to have been ordered in and imported from specialists, generic parts from main-stream dealers and mechanisms from a wide range of everyday appliances. He took a step forward, careful not to catch his feet on the mass of wires that carpeted the floor. However, apart from these devices, and a standard looking PC screen and keyboard, where the cash register should be, it appeared as if the rest of the room had be cleared out (several light shapes, mainly rectangular, along the walls, patches of thinner dust along the shelves/floors, as well as dents and scuff marks on the floor) and recently so.

There was a loud bang as the Henchman threw himself against the closed door. Sherlock didn't flinch or acknowledge it. If it was throwing itself against the door then it clearly couldn't get in yet, though judging from the cracking and creaking of the wood, they only had another four minutes, four minutes and thirteen seconds if they were lucky.

"We don't have long," The Doctor confirmed his thoughts, appearing beside him. "We need to…oh, this is beautiful!" The man's face lit up as he dashed forward to look at the enormous machine and the contraptions around it. "I mean, really ingenious. I'd love to meet the mastermind behind all of this. They didn't have a psychic transmitter, so they just got bits and bobs they could find on Earth and made-do. See here, they tried using a microwave, isn't that clever! 'Cause the radio was a better idea, only problem is that they have to avoid interfering with other signals, not easy in London. They must have created a whole new wavelength. Drawback is that they can't send complicated messages, short and simple. If they wanted to do more then they'd need resources you can't find here, not in this time anyway. You'd need a real mind to drive it properly, so whoever did all this clearly didn't want to stick around and watch. They've just left it on autopilot. Most of the energy this sends out now goes on keeping those Henchmen up and running."

"How?"

"They're essentially remote-controlled robots, just made with flesh rather than metal and wires. They aren't alive; they're just a shell for the program. The computer here," he indicated to the ones on the shelves, "contains the data, travels through the wires and is then converted to be broadcasted across London. The Henchmen must have receivers inside them somewhere."

The door buckled, threatening to give way at any moment.

"We have less than a minute before we're joined by your friend."

"My friend!? You were the one who was getting close and personal earlier."

There was another loud bang and the wood cracked.

"He's about to get up close and personal to both of us."

"No problem." He pulled out his screwdriver again and flipped it on. However, this time his face fell after eight seconds. "Ah, it's deadlocked. Another way then... I can't see a power source, no mains plug. Oh, power inside, a powerful one. So not just 20th century technology. That makes sense, can't be a human from-"

He was abruptly cut off when the door burst open and the creature crashed to the floor before them. The Doctor backed away as it picked itself off the ground and slowly blinked. Its eyes remained fixed on The Doctor as the man backed away, edging round the side of the room.

"It would appear as if you have its undivided attention," Sherlock commented.

"Yes," he replied, cautiously moving into the empty half of the room. "I think you'll-"

"Keep him busy," Sherlock interrupted, taking advantage of the beast's distraction to back towards the only keyboard and screen in the room.

"Oh, yes! Distract the big ugly walking patchwork quilt! And what are you doing?"

Sherlock skipped over the wires that led from the hard drives to the screen and keyboard. Swinging round the short counter he looked at the screen. "Hacking into the system, of course. It goes down, then so does the creature. I thought that would be obvious, based on what you've said." Power light was flashing, on sleep mode. Why leave it on sleep mode? Didn't matter presently. He hit the 'enter' button and watched the screen flicker into life.

"Oh, you're just going to hack into an alien computer, are you?"

"Naturally." He frowned at the screen as a series of white circles scrawled themselves onto the display.

"So you're just going to waltz into the system with a few taps. Who d'you think you are? Me?"

"No, I'm better." He tapped the keys and watched the circles shift and change. A code then.

"Be-," his outraged reply was abruptly cut off as the Henchman launched itself at him. The Doctor ducked to the side, away from Sherlock and the path of his attacker. The creature didn't quite reach him though. Its aim was true, but rather than make the bound in one leap, it landed on the centre isle of shelves. The paws settled on the plastic and, unable to hold the foreign weight, it collapsed in on itself bringing the creature and the computers crashing to the floor. The Doctor briskly crawled round the edge of the shelves, closest to the door to look at the scene.

"That was close. I was nearly squished like a pancake there."

Sherlock barely glanced at the creature or the man. He was more focused on the screen in front of him, but no matter what he did, the screen refused to change from series of circles. He even tried the standard 'Ctrl Alt Del' combination, to no avail. Even if the circles were some kind of code, without a starting point, his own Rosetta Stone, he couldn't begin to decode it in the limited space of time they had. This wasn't as simple as one of Mycroft's government lackey's codes.

He slammed his palms down on the counter in irritation. _Damn it._ He quickly slid his eyes over to the hostile creature to check his outburst hadn't drawn unwelcome attention, and paused.

The Henchman writhed as it tried to roll back to its feet amongst the broken equipment (odd that it hadn't risen yet, must be disorientated). When it clumsily rose to its feet, it shook its head, turning left and then right before sniffing the air. Following its nose, the head turned to the Doctor (loss of eyesight). The Henchman took a step forward, but stumbled feebly as the front legs crossed over each other and drastically miscalculated where the floor was (motor functions damaged as well). Whatever had been damaged in the fall had taken the creature's sight and motor functions with it.

He quickly bent down and searched the back of the computer screen. He followed the cables to the nearest hard-drive. Slipping round the counter, cautious of the Henchman stumbling around, he edged round until he was by the fallen equipment. The Henchman stumbled round, dragging itself closer to the Doctor by the second.

"It's disorientated," The Doctor began, stating the obvious, and shifted his weight to scramble out of the creature's way when it lunged forward, "If you-"

"I know what I need to do," Sherlock cut in and the other man spluttered in indignation. Perhaps he would have replied, but instead his attention was taken up by this predator's advance. It half-dragged its way across the floor towards him, then lashed out blindly, missing a red converse by a hair's breadth, and fell to the ground again.

He crouched down by the closest hard-drive that had been knocked to the floor, but still appeared to be functioning. A quick scan of the wires at the back told him which ones were important. He grabbed them in his fist, pulled… and it exploded.

It wasn't a large explosion, just a small pop that was barely audible over the snarling beast and a small tremor that ran through the casing. Black smoke drifted up through the cracks and into the air. There was another small pop, and another, and another as a chain reaction was set off through all the small computers and a wisp of smoke drifted up from many sources. The hum of machines died down and the life from large complex of computers faded with the Henchman's. The creature, half risen, collapsed back onto the ground, its head lolling back onto the ground and clearly dead.

"Well," the Doctor started from where he still sat on his hands and knees. "That was anti-climactic."

Sherlock was about to comment that having your life saved could hardly be described as anti-climactic, but he found himself agreeing with the odd man. Looking up, he met the strangers gaze, seeing his own thoughts and feelings reflected on the other man's face. A small bubble rose in his belly and the struggle only lasted a moment before they both burst out laughing.

* * *

Well, there's the pre-arch. I'll be honest, I'm not really happy with this conclusion at all, but hopefully the others will be better. As my beta-reader/brother said, 'can't always have a personal best.' Anyway, feel free to leave your own thoughts on it. I'm open to comment on con. crit.

The basic set-up of this fic will be a series of arcs, each lasting 3-4 chapters (though it's looking like it will be more like 4 now) each leading up to the finale. Between each arch will be a small in-between adventures chapter. Sherlock and the Doc in their down time, so to speak.

Next chapter: Sherlock meets the TARDIS and we have a special guest.

Oh, and if you like a challenge then check this out: forum/Fictunes/129656/


	4. The Extraordinary Man and His Impossi

**Chapter 4** (The Extraordinary Man and His Impossible Machine)

The sphere was unsalvageable. The Doctor had taken one dismayed look at it, pocketed a few bits and pieces before throwing the rest into a neighbour's black bin (collection day: the bins had been moved to the pavement and he could smell thirteen days of built-up refuse). Sherlock discarded the notion of digging after the pieces; the Doctor would obviously take anything worth looking at and keeping, which left him with the satisfying task of picking the man's pocket. The problem was that the other man constantly remained a couple of steps in front of him, chatting merrily away, allowing the detective to absently add to his own theories. It didn't seem to matter if Sherlock sped up or slowed down; they remained the same distance apart, with no apparent change in the Doctor at all.

As he tried to draw level, he attempted to get answers from the strange man through subtle and not so subtle ways. However, all he received were vague answers carefully constructed to give him no more than what the Doctor wanted him to know. He knew that Henchmen were several creatures that were fused together and were held in place and animated with 'psychic energy'. Utter rubbish of course, he would have to probe deeper, but the man seemed reluctant to do so, simply shrugging it off as 'unimportant' or 'complicated' (offense taken at the latter).

He was about to shift subject to something that would make the man relax and let little vital clues slip by (or find out if the other man simply didn't know and understand the science behind what had just happened. Possible. It would explain the man's vagueness as an attempt to hide his ignorance), when the Doctor veered the subject into another direction.

"Well, this is my stop then," the Doctor said, halting before a door and pulling out a key.

Sherlock looked up behind the man. "A police box?"

It was in the 1960's style, but not an authentic police box. At first glance there were a dozen mistakes that would be missed by your average layman, but it was a poor replica in his opinion. The tip of the roof was twenty centimetres too low, the rest of the height was made up by the lamp on top to bring it to only four centimetres shorter than a genuine police box. The lamp was completely the wrong style, twice as tall and half the diameter it should be and the cover was also completely wrong. The entire box was thirty-three centimetres too wide. The panels of the door too large and, ah, there was no Metropolitan Police crest on the right hand door. The rest of the mistakes could be filed away as unimportant with that glaring mistake.

"I could go to the end of the universe and back in this," the Doctor replied. "Have as well, weeeell, one way. Coming in?"

So the vagueness was an attempt to lure him to follow the other man in order to get more answers. Hmph, Sherlock was not one who liked to be manipulated. "A bit cramped in there. I think I'll pass."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that…" The suggestion was left hanging as that annoying knowing smile appeared back on the man's face. He didn't turn until he stepped back into the box and walked further in.

A frown appeared on Sherlock's face, so slight that it barely creased his skin. The doctor was walking further in, into a box that had a diameter of one metre and eighty centimetres. He could hear the footsteps, distinct in their non-police box nature. They were metallic (closest sound he could come up with was iron, three centimetres thick and most likely a grate rather than a solid surface floor, but it didn't quite fit the mould). The delay between the footsteps and echo indicated the room had a twenty-three metre diameter, most likely a circular room. All of this was ridiculous though because he could see well enough that the man had walked into a police box.

The footsteps continued walking away, five metres, 2.78 times the width of the box He could feel heat from the inside (27 degrees Celsius compared to minus one outside). Unable to resist the puzzle presented by these clues, he stepped round the open door and stepped into the mystery of the blue box.

Never, in his thirty-three years or for the rest of his life, had he been so shocked or surprised.

He had expected a simple, silly trick, but he found the opposite and it hit him like nothing else ever had. Rather than the cramped, dingy interior he was expecting, he found himself in a large, spacious… room. Control room, he corrected himself as he looked at the column that stood in the centre, clear glass (or presumed glass, from the look of it) surrounding what appeared to be a kind of piston (would need closer examination to know for certain what it was and its purpose). The pillar gave off a light green glow that filtered through into the control panel (that much was obvious, a ninety-four centimetre wide console that circled the column. Button, levers, dials, cranks, reception bell, switches, sliding controls…yes, definitely a control panel, but seemingly one designed by an overly eager child who had no concept of practicality). It seemed to be in full working condition (he would need a closer to look to be certain whether it was simply for show).

His feet carried him forward as he was pulled towards the heart of the room. His steps echoed against the metal walkway (a grate, as he had suspected, iron most likely, but there was something wrong. The sound was a tone too high, the texture too smooth and dark). The room was twenty-three metres, a dome shape, but the floor dropped another five metres below the walkway, and steam floated around the pit. The walls and curved pillars were of a strange material that he could not identify. Too organic to be metal, the supports could almost be wood (too smooth, no grains on the surface). The echoes weren't lying, couldn't be lying when his own eyes were telling him that the inside was really as it appeared to be: bigger on the inside than the outside (even more so than he realised if the doors leading off from the room were anything to go by).

Everything was well and truly three-dimensional (depth was there, layers and space, no images. None of it was faked). Nothing could fool him this well, not a photo, projected image, mirror or an extremely talented artist. He was taking his fourth, fifth, sixth step, he should have run into a wall four steps ago. He stopped, ignoring the smirking Doctor.

He finally understood the feeling that sent people into gob-smacked awe, that turned them into mindless fish. This… As far as he could see was-

No.

Sherlock took a step back.

No. This was not possible.

He backed towards the door. An object could not be this disproportionate in surface area and volume. This had to be some kind of clever trick. A fiendishly clever trick.

He fled (not fled, Sherlock Holmes did not flee) outside. As soon as he was out in the cold winter air he did a quick round of the 'police box', to check for signs of trickery before they could be cleared away. Nothing. He found faint scorch marks on the sides and back (quick touch revealed the texture was indeed 'wood' and the blackening was ash, not paint or oil). As he passed the door again a glance told him the interior was still there and he started the second circle, keeping a hand pressed against the wood (if it was wood, he sincerely doubted that now). He examined the surface and area more closely, looking for a paradox, any grain out of place.

He tapped the surface, nothing unusual. He took out his pen knife and dug the blade into the surface, or he tried. He couldn't even make a scratch. He tried stabbing the exterior, but the blade just slide over the surface, narrowly missing cutting himself. Closing the knife he returned it to his pocket and took out his lighter. Flicking on the flame he held it against the 'wood' for sixty seconds. He frowned properly when the exterior was unscathed: no wood he knew of was that resistant. What could leave marks on such a material? (It wasn't too important, could be put lower down on the list of priorities. Whatever it was, it had to be intensely hot).

He checked the joints, the cracks, the panes. He did everything he could think of to find the trick, but he failed. He couldn't find the secret. His senses had failed him. What scared him though, and more than just a little, was that he wasn't sure how much they had failed him. Could he trust his eyes anymore? Could he trust his mind? Unlike the HOUND he couldn't put this down to drugs. There was no point within the last hour in which he could have ingested the drugs (would have to be within the last hour in order for it to be taking affect now), it felt too real as well. Not even Baskerville felt this real; this was too clean and crisp.

He took a third circle round the box, because there had to be something. This couldn't be real and his senses couldn't be failing him. He needed his senses, he used them. Not in the dull way everyday people did, he actually used them. There was nothing though. Nothing he had missed. No trick that he could see, nothing that he had overlooked.

Stopping in front of the doors he looked them up and down, really taking them in before he pushed the door fully open and stepped inside again. His eyes roamed the inside once more as he took in the sights, sounds and smells to seek out the answer that did not want to present itself. It left two possibilities; either he had finally 'lost it' (as John would put it) and he could no longer trust himself, or that this was all true. He wasn't sure which he preferred. The former scared him more than he cared to admit, but he struggled to bring himself to believe that this wasn't some elaborate hoax. It defied the laws of physics and mathematics.

However, if he believed in this, all the other pieces of the puzzle started to slip smoothly into place, forming the outline of a large and cohesive picture. The more he thought about it, the deeper it took root in his mind, letting all the other theories shatter and fade away. It was the only one that made sense with all the components, as insane as it seemed.

Sherlock's eyes finally came to fall on the Doctor, who was looking more pleased with himself every second.

"This is impossible." The detective simply settled on.

"Most people start with 'It's bigger on the inside'."

"That much is obvious. This breaks Galileo's square-cube law."

"Not my law though." Under normal circumstances he would have given the man a dressing down about how the laws of mathematics bowed to no man, not even Mycroft. You couldn't just decide which of the building blocks of the universe were going to apply to you and which were not. They applied to everyone, regardless of wishes and desires (or perhaps 'delusions' was a better word).

"It doesn't work like that."

"No, but the universe doesn't quite work in the way you think either."

"How does it work?"

"Now that would take a long time to explain."

"Start with this then."

"It's a TARDIS: Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Has a dimensionally transcendental aspect to it which allows it to be larger on the inside. Could fit a village in here. Used to have a village on the fourth floor actually, before I misplaced it. Wonder where I put it..." The Doctor placed his hands in his pockets and frowned thoughtfully.

"And you built it in the shape of a 1960's police box?"

"Nah, not really," he scrunched up his face a little as he swayed his upper body slightly, "It's supposed to alter its shape to blend into the background, but the chameleon circuits got a little frazzled and it's stuck like this now. Still, I'm quite attached to it. Doesn't seem to make much difference anyway, nobody notices."

"People are stupid," Sherlock said as an agreement, more to himself than his conversation partner, "they see a police box and think nothing of it, no matter where it is. It's odd, but so are hundreds of other things in their lives, they just forget about it." His eyes raked the inside again, before fixing on the Doctor. "And where and when are you from?"

The Doctor could not look happier. "Oh, you got both of them. That's good. Do you really want me to tell you though? Wouldn't you rather tell me?"

Sherlock stepped forward, further into the TARDIS and towards the man, examining him and all the information and actions he'd received over the evening.

"You're from another planet," he continued moving forward as if he was slowly being pulled in, "most likely from another 'dimension', or whatever you want to call it. You're not human, but you know London well enough so you've spent time here, judging from the TARDIS shape probably the 1960's, early 1960's, probably making repairs from whatever damaged these "chameleon circuits", or hiding from whatever did it." (A slight twitch of the other man's lips, so that wasn't quite the reason for his stay in London). "That makes you at least in your fifties, more likely late sixties to early seventies. Noooo, I think you're far older than that. Your youthful appearance hides most indications of your age, but I would put your age in the hundreds, closer to one; no offence but your lifestyle doesn't seem conducive to living a long time. Speaking of which, you seem to treat this whole affair very casually. A regular occurrence? A hobby? A profession?"

"You could call it that I suppose, but you're wrong about my age. I'm older than the United Kingdom."

Sherlock digested this information (older than the United Kingdom, not England, so between 306-1076 years old), no longer able to feel surprised by the news. "You regenerate your cells then. Oh! 'I've become attached to this face.' You can change your appearance, but not at will otherwise you would have done so to escape the Henchmen. Implies you can't heal mortal or serious injuries. If you're maimed, there's no simple reversal. I would say that before death you shift form? Regenerate?"

"Oh, you are good. My body is a lot better at healing itself than yours, but my biology is very different. It can easily deal with things that would kill a human, but not quite as efficient in other ways. I'm very aware of my body, helps me to control my aging, but if you shot me then my body can't deal with it any better than yours. If I'm about to die, it triggers a regeneration and I get a brand spanking new me. Well, not always spanking. I can trigger the regeneration myself, but that's just wasteful."

"Wasteful? So you have a limited number of regenerations or limited energy to regenerate?"

"I can regenerate thirteen times."

"What are you then?"

"I'm a Time Lord from a planet a long long way away from here called Gallifrey."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow as his lips twitched up. "Time Lord? A bit pompous."

The Doctor smiled back, a little embarrassed, and a hand rose to scratch behind his ear, titling his head a little as he did so. "I suppose we were rather, but it's an accurate name. The TARDIS can travel through time and space, anywhere I want to go. All I have to do is press a few buttons."

"THIS travels through time and space." Now _that_ Sherlock did find hard to believe.

"So police boxes that are bigger on the inside than out and chimeras powered by a psychic link are ay-okay, but space and time travel isn't?"

Touché. "It is a bit hard to believe."

The Doctor's smile spread into a grin. "Want me to prove it to you? Tonight was just a small taste of where I can take you, but it will be dangerous."

Danger? That didn't bother Sherlock; if anything it upped the stakes. Here he stood, in an impossible machine with an extraordinary man with the most unbelievable claim. Moriarty's network seemed like a dismal child's game in comparison. He turned back to the alien and gave him a small, smug smirk.

"Impress me."

(&)

The night-shift at Saint Albion's Hospital was unusually quiet. Doctor John Watson would have expected a small shuffle, a soft snore or at least Emily Jones trying to sneak out of her hospital bed again for a midnight snack with Milo Wilson. He smiled to himself; trouble the pair of them, but they were good kids. Working in the paediatric ward was a mixed blessing. He found the children, generally speaking, were more pleasant to work with than the adults, but it was always a little depressing to see children in hospital. At least these children weren't suffering from anything terminal by way of injuries or illness, most would be out of here within the next couple of weeks, though some were more serious than others.

He slipped between the curtains that separated Alice Harper from the rest of the ward. The girl stared up at the ceiling, her gaze blank, as if her eyes were made of glass. Sighing at the sad sight, John picked up the clipboard at the end of the bed and scanned the sheet.

She was a strange patient: she didn't move, except to breath, or speak. It wasn't paralysis, or catatonic sleep. It was as if the outside world wasn't there; the hospital, her friends, family, doctors, all of them. Like an empty shell was lying in the bed and the worst part was that they had no idea what was wrong with her. One minute she was in the school playground with her friends, playing a game she had made up, the next it was as if she had decided to go on holiday and had forgotten to pack her body. It disturbed the nurses and most of the other doctors, one reason he did the rounds here so often.

No matter what tests they ran, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Not that he knew what they had actually done; he was just covering for a pregnant employee. Besides, she was being moved in the next couple of days to a new hospital, somewhere more specialized and capable of handling the strange case.

"Are you the doctor?"

John nearly yelped. Jumping out of his skin, as the clipboard tumbled from his hands and clattered loudly on the floor. He stared wide-eyed at little Alice who was sitting up in her bed, her 'gaze' fixed on him but the eyes remaining dead.

"Are you the doctor?" she repeated.

He opened his mouth only to find his voice as absent as the life behind her eyes. Closing it again he licked his lips and swallowed before trying again. "Yes," he finally managed, recovering from his shock as he quickly moved forward, "I'm Dr. Watson, the-"

John froze as he stepped round to the side of the bed. She followed him with her gaze, her head tracing the path he took, stopping when he did, but the rest of her body never moved. It was as if an invisible hand turned her head. His skin prickled, unease slithering up his spine and his mind whispering warnings. He hadn't felt like this since…since seven months ago. She looked through him and if he didn't know better, he would have thought that nothing more than an extraordinary doll sat before him. There was nothing there, no life, no soul. It was beyond disturbing.

This was ridiculous. He'd run through towns and deserts under gunfire, an eight-year-old girl was nothing in comparison.

"…the night shift doctor," he finished. "How are you feeling?"

Her head cocked ever-so-slightly to the left, looking 'at' him.

"You're not the doctor."

John frowned, but before he could ask what she meant by that, the child collapsed back into the pillows. The fear suddenly released its grip on him and he rushed to her side. "Alice? Alice?"

But he received no response. She remained as she ever was, dead to the world as she stared into the void. Unmoving and unseeing as a china doll, leaving him to wonder if he really had seen anything at all.

* * *

So, we had a surprise guest appearance from John Watson in this chapter. Hope you enjoyed this. Next chapter we move onto the next arc. :D

Hope you've enjoyed this so far. If you have constructive criticism, or general comments, feel free to tell me. I'll always think and consider what you've said, anything that will help me improve my writing. I'd like to know where I go wrong while writing this so that I don't continue making the same mistakes arc after arc. :D


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